@christophernwest
PhD candidate in Practical Theology at the University of Aberdeen. Researching how the performance of symbolic actions in liturgy impacts the espoused theology of participants. Opinions are my own, except where they are not. He/him.
Have you had personal tutoring responsibilities in a UK HEI in the last five years? I'd love to hear from you! I'm running a short survey on interpersonal relationships & care within personal tutoring, which takes ~10 minutes to complete. Please do share: I'm keen to get a wide range of responses!
I think it does what it sets out to do and leaves the door wide open for further inquiry. I hope others take up the mantle, giving more sustained attention to other provincial contexts and the lived experiences of ordinary clerics beyond Dublin and its senior clergy.
Exactly this! Until now, we’ve had a somewhat patchy and uneven institutional history – one that too readily lends itself to simplified interpretations of decline – and the collection as a whole helpfully puts stepping stones in place that effectively problematise that.
Yes! The entire collection is incredibly good. I particularly enjoyed Joan Redmond's essay, which, if memory serves me, is up next for you. That said, Alan Ford is a second-to-none essayist too; it goes without saying.
No-one says ‘Fast food isn’t going away, so let’s work out how to incorporate it into your diet’, yet we are often treated to the same non sequitur when it comes to AI
Very proud of you all, and sending all good wishes your way. Incredibly encouraging to see solidarity between staff and students from across the disciplines. Solidarity! ✊
”We are not only fighting for our jobs, we are fighting for each other”: hear from me and other staff and students who joined picket lines at Uni of Aberdeen today 🪧✊🏻 www.gaudie.co.uk/wpress/index...
The latest of our Practical Theology collab articles is out now! This one is by the awesome @karenod.bsky.social so you know you need to read it. It's genuinely fabulous and also outlines a bit of how the FTN came to be, a tweet from a sun lounger and here we are:
practicaltheologyhub.com?p=2081
Great to see this, and to have been a small part of it with @karenod.bsky.social! Our chapter on feminist trauma theology and masculinities began as a conversation with the brilliant @revdwillrm.bsky.social, which you can find in this thread.
Do you enjoy a pint and a pipe? If so, you're sorted.
*SCREAMS "EVERY TRANSLATION IS AN INTERPRETATION" AND CLOSES LAPTOP*
Perhaps I am simply being too hard on myself, and this is just another symptom of impostor syndrome.
The worry is that it lacks forward movement and can almost feel stunted. It is as though I am getting splinters on the fence and doubling back in order to go forward, rather than moving ahead with any real energy.
Perhaps the question is not merely whether I should change the habit, but whether I am constitutionally incapable of doing so (irony intended).
At what point is it a horse you simply have to work with, and at what point is it a horse you ought to try to train? My sense is that it also reflects the way I think and reason more generally: not this, but perhaps this… building cumulatively, and with increasing nuance at best.
I have just discovered that so much of what I write relies on the same contrast architecture (that is, the question is not merely X, but Y). I wonder if this comes from preaching and presiding, because I can almost hear my own sermonic and liturgical rhythm behind it.
#WritingLife: Has anyone had a similar experience? In rereading a few drafts for different projects in quick succession, a sudden revelation of a particular quirk of your writing style appears. The more you read, the more noticeable, and the more annoying, it gets.
1 John 4:19
I’m delighted to have my work featured in Amethyst Magazine: an experimental piece that plays with line formatting and the use of blank space to gesture towards the cut-out silhouette of Christ in the installation at Down Cathedral 🕯️⚓
Call for papers!
Theology in Scotland's Autumn 2026 issue will focus on #migration, #displacement, and #belonging: vital themes for Scotland and the world.
Full details/submission info: ojs.st-andrews.ac.uk/index.php/TI...
Follow us at @theoscot.bsky.social for more news, calls, and updates
Cry aloud,
In solidarity with all those standing up for our communities against the brutality of immigrant detention and ICE occupation, we're offering free ebooks of three crucial books about migrant justice and border abolition.
❤️
From Olga Ravn’s The Wax Child, translated by Martin Aitken. Weird and wonderful.
Pick up the nearest book. Turn to page 42, and post the second sentence.
“That was how I learned of it, by way of the lead’s travelling through the people’s blood.”
How interesting! It sounds like the experience gave you something important, even if it didn’t last the way you expected. Running away in the middle of the night feels oddly poetic, though. It also makes sense to me – you can love something and still miss home: both can be true, and so often are!
Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord;
Burnout is genuinely life-destroying and I really can't say, on this website, what I think should happen to managers who not only let it happen to one individual worker but who systemically make it happen on large groups of workers.
This year I'm working on giving up Pelagianism in hopes that this will earn more favor with God
